Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (433 page)

Then, and not till then, did Stalky seek Beetle and McTurk in their house form-room. They were stowing away books for a quiet afternoon in the furze, which they called the “wuzzy.”

“All up,” said Stalky, serenely. “I spotted Heffy’s fairy feet round our hut after dinner. ‘Blessing they’re so big.”

“Con-found! Did you hide our pipes?” said Beetle.

“Oh, no. Left ‘em in the middle of the hut, of course. What a blind ass you are, Beetle! D’you think nobody thinks but yourself? Well, we can’t use the hut any more. Hoofer will be watchin’ it.”

“‘Bother! Likewise blow!’” said McTurk thoughtfully, unpacking the volumes with which his chest was cased. The boys carried their libraries between their belt and their collar. “Nice job! This means we’re under suspicion for the rest of the term.”

“Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. He and Foxy will watch it. It’s nothing to do with us; only we mustn’t be seen that way for a bit.”

“Yes, and where else are we to go?” said Beetle. “You chose that place, too — an’ — an’ I wanted to read this afternoon.”

Stalky sat on a desk drumming his heels on the form.

“You’re a despondin’ brute, Beetle. Sometimes I think I shall have to drop you altogether. Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky forget you yet?
His rebus infectis
— after I’d seen Heffy’s man-tracks marchin’ round our hut, I found little Hartopp —
destricto ense
— wavin’ a butterfly-net. I conciliated Hartopp. ‘Told him that you’d read papers to the Bug-hunters if he’d let you join, Beetle. ‘Told him you liked butterflies, Turkey. Anyhow, I soothed the Hartoffles, and we’re Bug-hunters now.”

“What’s the good of that?” said Beetle.

“Oh, Turkey, kick him!”

In the interests of science bounds were largely relaxed for the members of the Natural History Society. They could wander, if they kept clear of all houses, practically where they chose; Mr. Hartopp holding himself responsible for their good conduct.

Beetle began to see this as McTurk began the kicking.

“I’m an ass, Stalky!” he said, guarding the afflicted part. “
Pax
, Turkey. I’m an ass.”

“Don’t stop, Turkey. Isn’t your Uncle Stalky a great man?”

“Great man,” said Beetle.

“All the same bug-huntin’s a filthy business,” said McTurk. “How the deuce does one begin?”

“This way,” said Stalky, turning to some fags’ lockers behind him. “Fags are dabs at Natural History. Here’s young Braybrooke’s botany-case.” He flung out a tangle of decayed roots and adjusted the slide. “‘Gives one no end of a professional air, I think. Here’s Clay Minor’s geological hammer. Beetle can carry that. Turkey, you’d better covet a butterfly-net from somewhere.”

“I’m blowed if I do,” said McTurk, simply, with immense feeling. “Beetle, give me the hammer.”

“All right. I’m not proud. Chuck us down that net on top of the lockers, Stalky.”

“That’s all right. It’s a collapsible jamboree, too. Beastly luxurious dogs these fags are. Built like a fishin’-rod. ‘Pon my sainted Sam, but we look the complete Bug-hunters! Now, listen to your Uncle Stalky! We’re goin’ along the cliffs after butterflies. Very few chaps come there. We’re goin’ to leg it, too. You’d better leave your book behind.”

“Not much!” said Beetle, firmly. “I’m not goin’ to be done out of my fun for a lot of filthy butterflies.”

“Then you’ll sweat horrid. You’d better carry my Jorrocks. ‘Twon’t make you any hotter.”

They all sweated; for Stalky led them at a smart trot west away along the cliffs under the furze-hills, crossing combe after gorzy combe. They took no heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and all that Turkey said of geology was utterly unquotable.

“Are we going to Clovelly?” he puffed at last, and they flung themselves down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the sea below and the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were looking into a combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that ran up to a fringe of brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and hollies. It was as though one-half the combe were filled with golden fire to the cliff’s edge. The side nearest to them was open grass, and fairly bristled with notice-boards.

“Fee-rocious old cove, this,” said Stalky, reading the nearest. “‘
Prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law
. G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P.,’ an’ all the rest of it. ‘Don’t seem to me that any chap in his senses would trespass here, does it?”

“You’ve got to prove damage ‘fore you can prosecute for anything! ‘Can’t prosecute for trespass,” said McTurk, whose father held many acres in Ireland. “That’s all rot!”

“Glad of that, ‘cause this looks like what we wanted. Not straight across, Beetle, you blind lunatic! Anyone could spot us half a mile off. This way; and furl up your beastly butterfly-net.”

Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up the handle to a two-foot stave, and slid the cane-ring round his waist. Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile from the sea, and reached the fringe of the brambles.

“
Now
we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up at all,” said the tactician. “Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf! Snf! Beastly stink of fox somewhere!”

On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him
a tergo
. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their inexpressible joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few square feet of dry turf walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse.

“By gum! There isn’t a single thing to do except lie down,” said Stalky, returning a knife to his pocket. “Look here!”

He parted the tough stems before him, and it was as a window opened on a far view of Lundy, and the deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles a couple of hundred feet below. They could hear young jackdaws squawking on the ledges, the hiss and jabber of a nest of hawks somewhere out of sight; and, with great deliberation, Stalky spat on to the back of a young rabbit sunning himself far down where only a cliff-rabbit could have found foot-hold. Great gray and black gulls screamed against the jackdaws; the heavy-scented acres of bloom round them were alive with low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the shadow of the wheeling hawks passed and returned; and on the naked turf across the combe rabbits thumped and frolicked.

“Whew! What a place! Talk of natural history; this is it,” said Stalky, filling himself a pipe. “Isn’t it scrumptious? Good old sea!” He spat again approvingly, and was silent.

McTurk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snored and gurgled; the birds, scattered for the moment by these new animals, returned to their businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm, sleepy silence.

“Hullo, here’s a keeper,” said Stalky, shutting “Handley Cross” cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared on the sky-line to the east. “Confound him, he’s going to sit down.”

“He’d swear we were poachin’, too,” said Beetle. “What’s the good of pheasants’ eggs? They’re always addled, too.”

“Might as well get up to the wood, I think,” said Stalky. “We don’t want G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up the wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know.”

Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through the furze.

“Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!” The keeper threw the gun to his shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets dusted the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky’s legs, and ran over the cliff-edge.

They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, disheveled, hot, but unseen.

“Narrow squeak,” said Stalky. “I’ll swear some of the pellets went through my hair.”

“Did you see him?” said Beetle. “I almost put my hand on him. Wasn’t he a wopper! Didn’t he stink! Hullo, Turkey, what’s the matter? Are you hit?”

McTurk’s lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him like this save once in a sad time of civil war.

“Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?” he said, in a grating voice, as he brushed prickles from his head.

“Well, he didn’t hit us,” said Stalky. “I think it was rather a lark. Here, where are you going?”

“I’m going up to the house, if there is one,” said McTurk, pushing through the hollies. “I am going to tell this Colonel Dabney.”

“Are you crazy? He’ll swear it served us jolly well right. He’ll report us. It’ll be a public lickin’. Oh, Turkey, don’t be an ass! Think of us!”

“You fool!” said McTurk, turning savagely. “D’you suppose I’m thinkin’ of
us
? It’s the keeper.”

“He’s cracked,” said Beetle, miserably, as they followed. Indeed, this was a new Turkey — a haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey — whom they accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a white-whiskered old gentleman with a cleek was alternately putting and blaspheming vigorously.

“Are you Colonel Dabney?” McTurk began in this new creaking voice of his.

“I — I am, and — ” his eyes traveled up and down the boy — ”who — what the devil d’you want? Ye’ve been disturbing my pheasants. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye needn’t laugh at it.” (McTurk’s not too lovely features had twisted themselves into a horrible sneer at the word pheasant.) “You’ve been birds’-nesting. You needn’t hide your hat. I can see that you belong to the College. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye do! Your name and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me — Eh? You saw my notice-boards? Must have. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did! Damnable, oh damnable!”

He choked with emotion. McTurk’s heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered a little — two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why should he, the offender, be angry?

“Lo-look here, sir. Do — do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don’t, your keeper does. We’ve seen him! I do-don’t care what you call us — but it’s an awful thing. It’s the ruin of good feelin’ among neighbors. A ma-man ought to say once and for all how he stands about preservin’. It’s worse than murder, because there’s no legal remedy.” McTurk was quoting confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman made noises in his throat.

“Do you know who I am?” he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle quaking.

“No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer me now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?”

And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked McTurk out of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a sunstroke, and as assuredly he would be slain — once by the old gentleman and once by the Head. A public licking for the three was the least they could expect. Yet — if their eyes and ears were to be trusted — the old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before the storm, but —

“I do not.” He was still gurgling.

“Then you must sack your keeper. He’s not fit to live in the same county with a God-fearin’ fox. An’ a vixen, too — at this time o’ year!”

“Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this?”

“Of course I did, ye silly man,” with a stamp of the foot. “Would you not have done as much for me if you’d seen that thing happen on my land, now?”

Forgotten — forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders! McTurk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand naked acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a crazy fishing-boat, and the idol of his father’s shiftless tenantry. It was the landed man speaking to his equal — deep calling to deep — and the old gentleman acknowledged the cry.

“I apologize,” said he. “I apologize unreservedly — to you, and to the Old Country. Now, will you be good enough to tell me your story?”

“We were in your combe,” McTurk began, and he told his tale alternately as a schoolboy and, when the iniquity of the thing overcame him, as an indignant squire; concluding: “So you see he must be in the habit of it. I — we — -one never wants to accuse a neighbor’s man; but I took the liberty in this case — ”

“I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous — -oh, infamous!”

The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and Colonel Dabney was talking as one man to another. “This comes of promoting a fisherman — a fisherman — from his lobster-pots. It’s enough to ruin the reputation of an archangel. Don’t attempt to deny it. It is! Your father has brought you up well. He has. I’d much like the pleasure of his acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young gentlemen? English they are. Don’t attempt to deny it. They came up with you, too? Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present state of education I shouldn’t have thought any three boys would be well enough grounded. But out of the mouths of — No — no! Not that by any odds. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye’re not! Sherry always catches me under the liver, but — beer, now? Eh? What d’you say to beer, and something to eat? It’s long since I was a boy — abominable nuisances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, too!” They were fed on the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but McTurk with bright eyes continued a free and lofty discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a brother.